It has been many years since I have given a speech on Buddhism at any Buddhist Centre for Buddhist practitioners. My classes usually cater to older people, over 55 years of age non Buddhists.
Today I would like to conduct our discussion according to the Buddhist tradition. English is not my mother language so if you cannot understand please let me know. I will be very happy for correction on pronunciation.
According to our tradition all teaching aims at Lord Buddha’s teaching, we never teach according to our own ideas. In reality Buddhist Teachers are messengers of the Buddha. So today’s teaching will be original teaching. My duty is to interpret properly and to elaborate to make the subject easy to understand, that is all. I don’t change the fundamental truth of Buddhism.
First of all, we always honour or pay homage to the Buddha. In reality the Buddha is in our heart, not outside. So in any direction you can pay respect or pay homage to the Buddha. Any direction, it doesn’t matter because the Buddha is on your head, or in your heart.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa
Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Sangham Saranam Gacchami
Dutiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Dutiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Dutiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami
Tatiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Tatiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Tatiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami
Always take refuge in the precepts when we teach Buddhism. I will take eight precepts for this section on behalf of all people. We use pali words to pay homage to the Buddha. I will use the English language for you all, because together with me you all will take eight precepts for this section. After you have left this hall you can do whatever you like.
When persons learn or teach Buddha it is sila kamma and it can be cultivated into meditation, therefore we always start by taking eight precepts.
We all will abstain from killing any living / sentient being.
We will not take anybody’s property without their consent.
We will not commit sexual misconduct.
We will not tell lies or untrue words during our Buddhist section.
We will not use divisive words or make any causes to divide the unity of the Buddha, Dhamma Sangha.
We will not use malicious or harsh words to hurt anybody.
We will not speak foolish or meaningless words.
We will abstain from improper livelihood, that is any livelihood that would hurt a living being. For example selling narcotic drugs, selling animals or meat, or selling human beings for slavery.
Buddhism is a practical guide to life, a guide to practice everyday, to be happy and peaceful people. If you don’t practice you will have nothing, The purpose of Buddhism is practice, you can discuss it but without practice you will have nothing.
Buddhism is the Buddha’s teaching, he taught us to give advice, that is our own choice. It will never force you to do anything against your own will, it will advise you about the right path, the wrong path and good behaviour. That is all.
You, yourself must make the effort.
The Buddha compared his teaching to the ocean. The ocean has eight qualifications, so too does the Buddha’s teaching. In this teaching I will compare only one thing: The ocean becomes deeper and deeper at a very gradual level, as you move from the shallow shore it becomes deeper.
The Buddha’s teaching is gradually deeper and deeper. If your intelligence level is high, you can learn higher areas of the teaching. If you are an ordinary person you can learn at a suitable level for you.
The Buddha said that in the ocean some animals are short and can only swim near the shore. Buddhism is accessible to everybody. If you are tall like an elephant or a giraffe you can go down, deeper, far away from the shore. In Buddhism there is something for everybody.
The Buddha can be compared to a clever tailor, you maybe very tall or very short – however the tailor can make suitable clothes for you.
The Buddha could read the minds of other people. Without words he could read what you are thinking. His students could ask a question with their minds and he could answer correctly.
The best gift in life is health. In your life if you are rewarded with the best gift, it would be health.
You can enjoy the luxuries of human life, enjoyment is at your disposal. You can enjoy beauty, music, tasty food, you can enjoy any companionship including sexual pleasure. But if you are sick, such things are useless.
If you can’t eat any sweets and suffer from very serious diabetes with no insulin available to you, how will you enjoy food?
If you suffer from extreme heart disease and your Doctor said you are not allowed to enjoy any emotion, how will you enjoy any pleasure in your life?
If you suffer from very serious headaches or migraines, you are not interested in listening to music, those vibrations give you trouble.
So the Buddha said the best gift is health. Buddhism is a practical way of life.
It is a blessing to live a long and healthy life.
The Buddha’s teaching is very simple. You can understand easily but it may be difficult to practice.
Morality promotes good health, the following five rules promote the blessings of good health:
The first golden rule is not to do improper things, very simple. But you must be knowledgeable, you must approach your physician and learn what is is improper for you. Sometimes improper for one person is good for another.
In general, you shouldn’t smoke. Everyone agrees that smoking is harmful to your airways and lungs. Drinking heavily and taking narcotic drugs including cocaine, perhaps only once can damage your brain depending on your DNA.
The Buddha said not to do improper things. Not to eat improper things, not to drink improper things, not to use improper positioning, and not to go to improper places.
If you visit Bali last year, even though you are healthy you may not survive a bomb explosion.
The Buddha’s teaching has a different meaning, a very wise meaning. The Buddha said not to do improper things, so you must learn what is improper.
The second, is is to do proper things but know your limits, not to go to far.
If you eat too much you will gain weight, obesity and diabetes are common problems among persons today.
It is important to find balance in all activities, walking, standing, lying down, sitting. The Buddha said to know your limits even though you are doing proper things. Excessive behaviour may not be proper.
You must use your brain to do things at the right time.
The fourth rule is to observe on occasion the eight precepts. That is,
1. Not to kill
2. Not to steal
3. To abstain from sexual intercourse
4. Not to lie
5. Not to take intoxicating substances
6. Not to eat after midday
7. Not to enjoy entertainments – music
8. Not to enjoy luxurious bedding
Observing these eight precepts you may notice it is good for your health. Your digestive system will get time for a rest.
The fifth rule for good health is to have trustworthy, reliable, good friends. Your physician is your good friend. He will advise you about proper things. If you have bad friends they will encourage to drink or take heroin. If you are rich they will encourage you to spend. Many actors and famous people have foolish friends.
If you practice these rules you can have long life. If you don’t practice you will get nothing.
The best wealth is contentment.
As long as you don’t feel content you are hungry for something.
To elaborate this point I want to tell a Japanese story.
Once there was a King who loved gold. Whenever he had the chance he would count how much gold he had. He was never fulfilled or satisfied with the amount of gold.
One day the King was rewarded with a philosophers stone that was able to convert anything into gold. The King believed it to be the best gift of his life.
He was very happy and turned everything into gold including barbed wire into gold chain.
To protect everything he made into gold he had to use his brain. Although the King had a lot of gold, he also had a lot of worry. He had to figure out how to protect his gold and his life from thieves. He began to suffer from tension headaches and ill health.
Despite having great riches the King could not enjoy life because of suffering from headaches. He could not even sleep properly.
He went to see the person who rewarded him the philosophers stone who said:
"Try to get a jacket from someone who doesn’t need anything, who bravely declares 'I don’t need anything, I don’t want anything'. If you get this jacket I will give you some formula to cure your headache."
He approached the Queen, she wants something… the Prime Minister, he wants something. So he sent a messenger in every direction to find somebody who could bravely declare “I don’t need anything, I don’t want anything”.
Weeks later one of the messengers found a person sitting near a bridge. Sitting without a shirt, only a small cloth to cover himself. The messenger brought the man to the King and they interviewed him and offered him many things, gold and riches. The man did not want or need anything. At last the King gave up and believed that this man wanted nothing.
He then asked for a jacket from this man in order to get the formula to cure his headaches.
The man was very sorry, he had no jacket to give, he had nothing, nor any need for anything. He was very sorry he could give the King nothing because he has nothing.
The moral of this story is, if you are content, you don’t need anything. As long as you need something you are hungry for something. Your desire is strong. If you are really content even you can sit without a jacket.
As long as you don’t feel content, you are a poor man. You may look very wealthy, you are not, you are hungry for something. Maybe for power, maybe for money, maybe for love or romance.
In the end the King gave up the philosophers stone and realised with wisdom that the best wealth is contentment. He new the truth of life.
Don’t misinterpret the Buddha’s teaching, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t need to improve.
To feel content means you must be satisfied with what you have. For example, if you are trying to be the most wealthy person in Australia like Kerry Packer. But you don’t have much luck and you are only a middle income earner – Be satisfied with that. Don’t feel upset.
You can try to achieve your own ambitions but if you don’t reach them please don’t be upset.
The trusted friend is the best relative. Even though you have many relatives or brothers or sisters, if they are not trustworthy they are not good relatives. True friends are the best relatives.
Some persons try to kill their own Mother.
Responsibility between two friends is important. If someone really pays respect to his responsibility according to the Buddha’s teaching, you can regard that person as your trusted friend and best relative. Not necessarily your brother or your sister, who sometimes argue. The following five points are characteristic of true friends.
1. True friends always offer help. Sometimes in the form of advice, if he is helpful and ready to share what he has he is a true and trusted friend. Even if he only has one banana he will give you half.
2. True friends treat you equally. He may be a very powerful person, maybe Prime Minister, a billionaire. He will not treat you unequally or inferior to him. True and trusted friends treat each other equally.
3. True friends keep the other persons best interests in their heart, they are always considerate of you and never forget you.
4. True friends always bring sweet words to you, they never use harsh words.
5. True friends always honour a promise to you, they never cheat, never twist the truth.
You should be like that and you will be a true friend.
The best bliss is Nibbana. Nibbana is a pali word, it has no equivalent words in English.
There is a beautiful story in the book ‘What the Buddha Taught”
A turtle and a fish lived together in a pond. One day the turtle went out of the water and walked on the land. When he came home the fish asked ‘where have you been? I have not seen you for many hours’. The turtle replied ‘I went for a walk on the land’. The fish had never heard of the word land before and could not conceive of the concept. The words land and walking were not in the fish’s dictionary, he did not understand.
It is like this when you try to understand the meaning of Nibbana. The more you try to understand Nibbana the more difficult. Some people totally misinterpret Nibbana. It is not music, nor singing. I will try to explain Nibbana to you.
There are two components of Nibbana. The first is:
All mental defilements are totally eradicated but that person still has body and mind. This is the Nibbana that results from all eradication of mental defilements.
You need to understand the definition of Buddhist defilements. One is clinging or attachment or desire for something.It is called lobha in Abhidhamma. If understand Abhidhamma you will understand lobha. Lobha can cover every meaning of attachment and desire except for meritorious activity.
If you have attachment to clothes, power, wealth, everything it is called lobha. It is a mental defilement.
Another is dosa, translated as ill-will. It can cover minor irritation to very serious anger or hatred. Everything negative in the mind is called dosa.
If you eradicate all the defilements and have no desire for anything you can sleep very well. If you have no attachment to anybody and your husband leaves you and runs away with another woman, you don’t feel anything. If your wife kicks you out you don’t feel anything because you have no attachment to her, you may even think that she is a nuisance.
Persons who don’t have attachment, ill-will, fear, irritation are very peaceful. It is called the first stage of Nibbana.
The second stage is very difficult. When the Buddha was alive his chief disciples, Arhats, achieved first stage Nibbana and did not experience any mental pain. If you abuse a Buddha he never feels pain in his mind or body.
There is a story of one Brahmin who was very hungry. Because the Buddha was a very good speaker many Brahmins became Buddhist and some ordained as Monks. The hungry Brahmin became very angry and believed that the Buddha was destroying the unity of family. He went to the Buddha and began to abuse him, calling him every bad name that came to his brain. The Buddha said nothing.
The Brahmin was incredulous, “I abuse you with many bad names but you don’t react with anger to me. What is the meaning?”
The Buddha explained that if you give a present to somebody and they don’t accept that present then you remain the owner of that present. You can abuse me but I don’t accept your anger, it belongs to you. The Brahmin listened to the Buddha and became a Buddhist Monk and later Arhat. Although the Buddha and his disciples are not subject to mental suffering they are still subject to physical pain. The Buddha and Arhat never escape from some suffering, they need to eat.
If you eat food sometimes you experience stomach pain. They also need to sleep and go to the toilet. They also suffer from some diseases because they have a body. As long as you have a body you may catch colds and other ailments.
As long as you body and mind are still alive Nibbana is not complete.
When the Buddha and Arhat pass away and are never reborn again this is called Second Stage Nibbana. The bliss resulting from the disappearance of physical body and mental body, as long as you have attachment to your body and mind you never understand the meaning of Second Stage Nibbana.
Just like the fish never understands the meaning of walking and land.
So with wisdom always remember that the best gift is health – practice to be healthy.
The best wealth is content, even though you are unemployed practice to be content.
Trusted friends are the best relatives. The Buddha called himself a good friend, he never called himself a Master.
Nibbana is the best bliss. If you listen and teach Buddha Dhamma you make kusala kamma. If you make kusala kamma you are entitled to wish for something. So I will wish depending on our meritorious deeds today.
“We accumulated good kamma, kusala kamma by listening and teaching the Buddha’s teaching. As a result of this meritorious deed of good kamma we wish we are able to understand Buddha’s teaching, realise the four Noble Truths and attain enlightenment, attain Nibbana. We share our merits with everybody, including divine beings at this Centre, human beings and every living being. That is my present to you”.
Saddhu
Saddhu
Saddhu
This talk was transcribed by Lainie Smallwood and edited by Evelin Halls.
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